To implement a network application (e.g., an instant messaging application, a social networking application, an online gaming application, etc.) in a large-scale network (e.g., the Internet), some known networking systems deploy service nodes distributed at various geographic locations to process service requests initiated by terminal devices from the corresponding geographic areas. When interaction between terminal devices from different geographic areas is needed, the service nodes deployed at the corresponding geographic locations will communicate with each other. To improve communication quality among the service nodes, the known networking systems typically deploy multiple acceleration nodes in the network to forward data transmitted among the service nodes. Furthermore, with the increase of the size of the network and the number of the service nodes, a series of multiple acceleration nodes can be used to forward data between two service nodes in a hop-by-hop manner.
The known networking systems, however, typically do not promptly update routing information that is used to select a next-hop acceleration node, thus often causing the same acceleration node to be selected as the next hop in a routing path. As a result, the known networking systems often continue using the same communication links to forward data even after communication quality of those links are deteriorated, thus causing poor performance in data transmission in the network.
Therefore, a need exists for a method, apparatus and system that can enable timely dissemination and update of routing information among service nodes and acceleration nodes to improve communication quality of a large-scale network.